The 66th Games: Scarlett's Story
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: The Second part of my Story of the Games series. Scarlett Delannoy is the District Seven female tribute, and Finnick Odair, a new mentor, thinks she has promise. NON-ROMANTIC... NON-ROMANTIC pairing.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is the second story in my Story of the Games series, the first being about Finnick's Games. You don't have to read that one, but I'd recommend it. It's short! This story will be told from two POVs, that of Finnick Odair, and that of my OC Scarlett Delannoy. This first chapter is from Scarlett's POV. Hope you enjoy it!**

**-J**

It was a particularly warm morning in District Seven on reaping day. I rolled out of bed, which I shared with my four-year-old niece, and went outside to where my father usually chopped wood. He wasn't chopping today, though. He was sleeping in, hoping in silence that I wouldn't be drawn. My entire nine-person family was inside the house, hoping I wasn't going to be drawn.

I hadn't had to take tesserae at first. That started when I was fourteen after my sister Serena became too old to be drawn, and she hadn't had to take it until Hana married. Then father were supporting not only his six children, but also Hana's husband (who did try to help, but it was hard to make good money logging), and my little niece, Alyson. Even though I'd only been taking tesserae three years, my name would be in the drawing twenty-nine times.

It didn't mean I would be drawn. True, few families were half as large as mine, and not all of the large ones had to take the tesserae. Still, there were enough girls in that drawing that I wouldn't necessarily be drawn.

The oldest of my younger brothers, Brendanus, came outside to join me. He was eleven, and wouldn't be up for the reaping until the next set of Games. He sat down beside me, looking up at the sky.

"It's going to rain today," he said casually.

It was our little joke. It rained nearly every day in District Seven.

"Yeah," I muttered. "I hope Trish remembers her coat this year."

My best friend, Trish, always got herself made up nicely for the reaping, knowing she had nearly as much tesserae entries as I did, but the year before we'd had an outright downpour during the reaping, when Jack and Ellie were drawn.

They were both dead on the first day of the Games.

"She will," he said, "if you go remind her."

I smiled at him slightly. He was right, of course; Trish had the memory of a squirrel. I kissed him on the forehead, told him to tell Hana where I'd gone, and went out toward Trish's house, which was well out of town. My family wasn't in town, either, as my father did splitting of wood and not some specialized career, but we had inherited a place closer to town from my mother's side, which was a bit richer than Trish's.

Trish was also from a family of six, although she was the oldest. Trish, Terance, Brent, Adde, Amie, and Lizzy had two bedrooms between them. For the boys, this wasn't so bad, but for the girls, it wasn't the greatest of arrangements, and it was particularly bad for Trish, who was the only one of her siblings, like me, old enough for the Games, so there was quite a gap between her and her younger sisters, the oldest of who was seven.

I knocked on the door to be greeted by their mother, who was up early, as always.

She was a logistical manager at the sawmills, where they did the big cutting. My father did finer chopping and cutting, the kind a machine couldn't achieve, for artisan woodwork. Elin, Trish's mother, had to be up with the sun for her work, and I suppose the habit carried over into reaping days, much like harvest celebrations, the new year, and probably even sick days.

My father was often up with the sun, too, but he didn't like getting out of bed on reaping days, or at least, he hadn't felt right about it since I started going on for the reaping.

My mother died giving birth to Ripley, the youngest, when I was ten years old. My father was a stoic sort of man, always doing what had to be done, going about his work, never wallowing in his pain. We all knew, though, that he missed her very much. I was the only child who had gotten her red hair, which I prized, but it was a constant reminder to my father of her. Sometimes he would look at me and it was as though he was looking past me, remembering her, no doubt.

When my sisters went to the reaping, it was just another duty my father endured, and he went about it with his usual stoic face with an added required smile, because the reaping was supposed to be something we celebrated, although no one really did. But when I turned twelve and went up for my first reaping, much to our surprise, we found my father lying in bed that morning when we woke up, staring at the ceiling, a hollow, vacant look in his eyes and his mouth soundlessly forming a word we could all tell was our mother's name. Hana and Serena tried getting him out of bed, but we only managed to get him to acknowledge our presence when I curled up on the bed beside him, asking him for breakfast.

I could have made breakfast myself. I was twelve, not a baby, but it did the trick. The fact that I was asking him for something like I had done as a child seemed to rouse him from whatever spell he was under and he put on his stoic face, kissed my forehead, and set out to take care of all of us.

My father never says he loves me, never tells me I'm pretty, never really shows much of emotion, but that day when my sister and I were no called, my father hugged me so tightly I thought he might snap me in half.

That day seemed to repeat itself in one way or another every reaping after, and I knew my father would not get out of bed until I came back from Trish's, so I had to be quick.

"Hello, Elin," I said with a smile. "Is Trish in?"

"Of course," Elin replied. She opened the door at let me in.

The fact that Elin didn't return my smile had nothing to do with the reaping. She didn't like me very much. She thought I was too headstrong, too opinionated, too dangerous. Her joke was that I ought to be chosen for the Games because eventually my tongue would get me killed, anyway.

I never thought the joke was very funny.

The house was smaller than mine, and I knew the floor plan by heart, making my way to Trish's room at the end of the hall. Trish was doing Lizzy's hair.

"Someday I'll get to wear a pretty dress and stand in line too," Lizzy said in her sweet little voice. To her, the reaping was a game. She still didn't understand what happened to the boys and girls who were chosen, and certainly hadn't been told why they never came back.

Trish looked up at me, fear in her eyes.

"Don't forget your coat," I said softly. "Brendanus says it's going to rain."

She gave a laugh completely devoid of humor.

"Great," she muttered. "That means I don't have to bother with my hair."

Her hair was literally long, limp, and mousy-brown. It was the most difficult hair to do anything at all with, and although it suited her well in her daily style, it was hard to make much prettier for reaping.

"Well," I said once, when we were younger and thought it would be an adventure to be chosen, "I bet the Capitol people would make your hair very pretty."

But she was content, now, not to let the Capitol people have a go at her hair, because she'd rather do Lizzy's hair every morning than have someone fancy do hers a few times for a camera.

"Is your father out of bed yet?" she asked, brushing the blonde locks of her little sister.

"No," I said, sitting down on the cot that Lizzy shared with Amie. "I'm going to get him when I'm done here. Hana's got the boys under control. Everything's going to be fine."

Everything was not going to be fine, and I knew it. Someone one was going to be led off to the slaughter and it would probably be a friend of ours. Nearly all the selections from seven were from the woods, because we were the ones who had to sign up for tesserae. Ellie had been from the town. Jack had been from the woods. Blight, the District Seven mentor, was from the woods, although he lived in the Victor's village now.

"Right," she muttered. "You're not wearing those clothes, are you?"

"Of course not," I snapped. "I'm wearing one of Hana's dresses. It's the green one, you know."

"It's very pretty," Lizzy said eagerly, and I smiled at her. She was barely older than my niece.

"You're very right, Lizzy," I said, tapping her nose. "It's the prettiest dress in the world."

"No," she said, as though I had made the most obvious mistake imaginable. "My dress is the prettiest one in the world."

I apologized, and we laughed, which felt good, if a little out of place on a reaping day. I reminded Trish about the coat, and Lizzy assured me that she would make sure that Trish didn't forget it, and then I made my way back to my house, walking slowly, thinking somewhere in the back of my mind that if I didn't get home, didn't wake my father, the reaping somehow wouldn't happen, I couldn't be drawn, Trish couldn't be drawn, and nobody else would have to die.

But that was silly. District Seven needed tributes, because the Games were mandatory.

I did make it home, and I could see that Hana had gotten everyone ready for the reaping but me and my father. That was my job.

I washed, allowed my hair to curl a bit as it dried instead of combing it as straight as possible, which I did most days, and put on my sister's pretty green dress. I decided that would be good enough. No ribbons. No buns. Just me and my sister's pretty green dress looking a bit cleaner than I bothered to look most days. I would still be the prettiest, most luxurious girl from the woods, even though I couldn't compete with the town girls, and Hana was always the prettiest girl in the district. She had my father's black, curly hair and big brown eyes and a face that was pale and perfect. She'd had every boy in the town after her, despite the fact that her father cut wood. She picked a boy from the woods, though, to her credit.

As soon as I was ready, I went into my father's room, to find him lying on his bed, eyes staring at the ceiling, mouthing my mother's name, just like every year. With a sigh, I climbed onto the bed, curled up with my head on his chest and said, "Daddy, it's time to get up. Can you make me breakfast, daddy?"

For a moment, he would just lie there as my words sunk into his consciousness, but as soon as he realized exactly what I had said, he would sit up, look at me, kiss my forehead, and hurry downstairs to wash, dress in the clothes I'd laid out for him (although Hana always told me which ones to put out) and make me breakfast.

I lay back down on the bed as he went about the first parts of the routine, and Hana came up, sitting down beside me.

"Would you like me to do your hair?" she said.

I shook my head.

"I wonder if he'll always be like this," she said sadly. "I mean, once you're done because you're too old–"

"Or because I've died," I said sharply, looking down at my hands.

"Don't say that," Hana snapped. "You might not be incredibly athletic, but you've got the blood for it, and anyway, you're smarter than anyone I've ever met."

Well, that was true. I had always been the smartest in District Seven, but would that translate outside of my home?

"Scarlett!" my father called. "Breakfast is ready! Hurry up, we've got to go!"

Hana and I exchanged a look.

It wasn't really breakfast, of course, although he made me breakfast foods. It was well into the afternoon by the time I sat down to eat. Still, I ate the food quickly and followed my family out the door of our house, down the road, and into the town square, where the other eligible children were lining up by age.

Trish found me quickly and took my hand, leading me over to the other sixteen-year-old girls. I didn't know many of them. I didn't play nicely with girls my age, or anyone, really, except for Trish. I said what I thought far too much for anyone to want to be around me except for Trish, who knew and was nice to everyone. Somehow, much to her mother's dismay, she decided that I would be her best friend, and as I didn't have any other friends, I didn't really have much choice in the matter. Not that I wasn't pleased.

"Are you nervous?" she whispered.

I nodded.

Of course I was nervous. She was nervous. Every person standing in the square was nervous, except for those making bets, but they didn't have children going into the reaping, so they didn't care much what happened to all of us. Someday, that would be me, if I lived long enough. Honestly, the idea that I would anger the Capitol enough to be killed wasn't such a far-fetched one, and I considered it a very real possibility that I would be forced to keep my mouth shut, if not outright killed.

Our mayor and the Capitol escort, Parris Kristal, were going about the usual shenanigans of reaping, reading the same things they read every year that no one cared about, and Blight, the mentor, just sat there like a stone, unfazed by any of it.

"Ladies first!" Parris finally said, and Trish grabbed my hand, terrified, I think, that her name was about to be called.

But it wasn't.

When Parris Kristal flattened out the little piece of paper, the name that came out of her lips was "Scarlett Delannoy!"

Automatically, I wrenched my hand from Trish's grasp, made my way forward to the stage, and stood there like a stone as Parris Kristal congratulated me. Almost instantly, I decided on my strategy and smiled at her sweetly, a smile that I had seen Hana use a hundred times but never tried on, myself, until that moment.

There was applause, a bit more vigorous than usual, probably from all of the people who hated me.

Not everybody hated me. There were plenty of people who didn't care about me, or didn't know me, or actually sort of admired me, despite the fact that none of them had enough guts to be friends with me. Not that I really wanted most of them as a friend, in any case.

The boy they called was Chance Buckley, a thirteen-year-old from the town who had less of a chance than anyone I'd ever met at surviving the Games. He was small, mousy, and a bit of a pleaser. Pleasers might make alliances, but they certainly didn't survive them.

More speeches, more ceremony, and then we were taken to the town hall, put in separate rooms, and our families were brought to us.

My father, my sisters, my brothers, my niece, my brother-in-law… they all were standing before me, and it hadn't really sunk in yet that I was leaving, probably never coming back. My father would barely look at me, and just sat in a chair in the corner of the room, face in his hands. I gave them all kisses and hugs, tried to ignore Alyson's crying (for although she didn't have a concept of what was happening, she knew it wasn't something anyone liked), and walked right over to my father.

He didn't look up.

I curled up into his lap, petting his balding head like I had as a child, and whispered, "Daddy, please look at me."

He dropped his hands from his face and to my surprise I saw the tears. My father was crying. My father was crying because of me.

And I was going to die.

I kissed his scraggly cheek softly and said, "Daddy, I'm going to do what I can, all right? Can you do me a favor?"

He nodded.

"Can you look after Alyson for me, Daddy? Can you make sure she's all right?"

He nodded again.

Before I knew what was happening, he hugged me tightly, tighter than he ever had before and whispered, "I love you, Scarlett."

I didn't even know what to say.

They were taking my family away before I'd recovered myself, and it was then that Trish came in, tears filling her eyes, grasping me tightly.

"I don't want you to go!" she cried. "What am I going to do without you?"

She would be fine, I knew, but I indulged her melodramatic panic. She had plenty of friends. She would find a new best friend, one her mother actually liked, and she would be just fine.

"Take this," she whispered.

It was a small necklace with a green bead, one that we'd made one day in the woods when we were younger. There was no significance. It was not a symbol of luck or anything like that. It was just a token of our friendship, and I couldn't think of any better District token.

"I'll wear it during the Games," I whispered. I kissed her on the cheek. "Play with Alyson for me, please?"

"Absolutely," she said, still sobbing. "Lizzy wouldn't have it any other way."

I wished I'd had a chance to say goodbye to little Lizzy, but I was being taken to the train, and it was all I could do to say goodbye to Trish.


	2. Being a Mentor: Finnick

**A/N: This chapter is Finnick's POV.**

**-J**

Sitting on the stage during the reaping was a surreal feeling. Ever more surreal was the fact that I got on that train with Alivia McCullough and Aidan Frost, and they actually looked at me like their mentor, despite the fact that Aidan and I had gone to school together forever, and Alivia was actually a year older than me.

She wasn't a very pretty girl, but she was strong. She'd get a high score, I was sure, and that would be the best way to get her sponsors.

But Alivia wasn't my concern. I had to work with Aidan, who had been a friend of mine growing up. This helped, as I knew most of his strengths and weaknesses, but I was sure it would cause some tensions eventually as to my being in charge of the situation.

We watched the rerun of the reaping, beginning in District One. My charges did a good job, both being volunteers. There was a particularly fierce looking boy from District Six named Titus.

I frowned slightly at the screen. The girl from District Seven stuck out to me as I watched. Perhaps it was the red hair, like rubies, falling to her shoulders seductively. She wasn't particularly beautiful otherwise, although attractive was probably a fitting word, but her hair was absolutely stunning.

"How old is she?" I asked Meredith, our Capitol escort who had become quite close to me over my Victory Tour and Games. "The girl from District Seven, I mean."

She flipped through her notes and said, "Scarlett Delannoy, sixteen. Very pretty, isn't she?"

Sixteen. She was a year older than me, the same age as Alivia. And her name was Scarlett.

It didn't take a genius for one to figure out that her parents named her for some amount of red hair on her head at birth. I found myself wondering if her lips were typically so red, or if she had been done up a bit for the reaping.

In a way, she made me think of Stella, before she died, with beautiful hair and a way of confidence…

Stella. I hadn't thought of Stella in ages. I could still see her clearly in my mind as she was then, looking at me, beseeching me as the light and life left her pretty eyes.

More likely than not, the girl from District Seven would meet a similar fate.

"Scarlett Delannoy," I whispered to myself, "welcome to the Hunger games."

For some reason, I had more nightmares that night that I'd had in a while… Stella bleeding out on the shore, Alana closing her eyes as my knife slit her throat, the blood vessels in Lila's eyes twitching as her blood boiled, the horrified eyes of the boy from District Ten.

That had been the most difficult visit on the Victory Tour, District Ten. I had, after all, killed both of their tributes. The accusing glares from their mothers had haunted my dreams the rest of the tour. Really, they had yet to go away by that summer, heading back to the Capitol for another set of Games.

I woke up in the Capitol, discussing with Aidan the fact that he ought to just go with intimidating strength, that he and Alivia ought to join the other careers, possibly even leading the pack. They were certainly a talented pair. The question was would they be able to prove this to the Gamemakers and other Careers?

I thought they would. Aidan was a showy sort, and Alivia seemed to have a thirst to prove that she was better than Stella, which was difficult, because in any other year Stella might have won it all.

I sent them to the stylists, who were likely to take a long time about things, and I went looking for Blight, the District Seven mentor.

"Good haul you've got this year," Blight said as soon as I stepped off the elevator on his floor. I smiled.

"Yes, they're both very promising. You've got a rather pretty girl to work with, I must say."

Blight shrugged.

"Pretty, yes, but a pain in the neck. I imagine she's kicking her prep team right now, refusing the changes they're attempting to make. She's got a fire in her belly. Have a seat, Finnick."

I sat down across from him, frowning.

"Have you thought about alliances for her?" I said, taking a picture of orange juice and pouring myself a glass.

"I've decided to ally them with each other, for starters," Blight said with a groan. "Beyond that, I'll leave it up to them. I expect you're going to push your pair in with the Careers. It's a wise choice, if they're any good, which they look as though they would be. If I were allowed to bet, I'd bet on one of yours."

I snorted. Yes, Careers were usually a safe bet, but I didn't think that he ought to be saying so, what with two of his own tributes to mentor.

"What about the boy?" I asked. "How old is he?"

"Thirteen," Blight sighed. "Thirteen years old, and terrified. And I don't think having to be with Scarlett all the time helps. I asked him after she went off to sleep on the train why he kept staring at her, and he said he was afraid of her, that half the kids in school were, but he wouldn't say why, which was a pity. I could have used that in her strategy."

I thought for a moment, sipping my orange juice.

"It's the confidence. People are afraid of her because she's sure of herself. Stella was like that, too," I said. "Except Stella also knew well enough how to flatter people, make them feel like she was on their side, that they were friends. From the way you've talked about Scarlett, she doesn't much care."

Blight barked out a laugh.

"I doubt she's got a friend in the world, Finnick. We'll have to make her a bit sweeter if anyone in the Capitol is going to want to sponsor her."

I frowned a bit, looking down at my orange juice, and before I knew it, the words left my mouth: "I would sponsor her, if I could."

Blight examined me closely, as if trying to decide what to do with me, trying to decide what my words meant, just as I was trying to decide the very thing myself.

"I never thought you'd be the type to fall so easily for good looks, Finnick," Blight said finally. "I thought you were a good judge of character, what with your aversion to Stella and your fast friendship with Lila, but apparently you're just as human as the rest of us."

I frowned. What did that mean? Should I feel insulted?

"I don't–"

"Let's just say that a pretty face can hide a multitude of sins," Blight laughed. "But enough about the Games. How's life in District Four?"

I recounted harmless tales about our lovable Mayor Weber, told him of my father's incredible catch three weeks earlier, which was almost a match for the record biggest haul in a day. We discussed Mags and her poking me around the Victory Tour. Blight laughed and I felt a little better about everything, even forgetting for a few brief moments that I was going to have to mentor a boy who had been my friend in school, knowing that it was very possible that he would die a horrible, gruesome death.

But Mags had told me, on my Victory Tour, that I had to find a way to have a bit of a sense of humor about it or I would go absolutely insane.

Like the female mentor from District Three, Wiress. She was a sweet thing, but absolutely bonkers, and her nickname was actually "Nuts". Her male counterpart was known as "Volts", so the collective Nuts and Volts had a nice ring, and sadly had a lot of descriptive value about them.

Alivia and Aidan were to be dressed as fish, in "scaly", rainbow-colored sequins and with odd protrusions that I guess were supposed to be fins. Alivia's dress was in what Mags told me was "mermaid-style", with it being tight until partway down her legs, where it flared out. They looked nice, I suppose, and certainly would be the most sparkly pair, if not the prettiest. They lined up at the chariots and a lot of anxious looks were thrown their way. I can't say I blame the other tributes… Alivia at the least looked lovely.

But then the District Seven tributes walked in, dressed as trees (as always). Scarlett's hair had been utilized so that they were trees in autumn, with dazzling reds and yellows and golds all across their boughs. The outfits were skintight, which worked to Scarlett's advantage, as she certainly had the perfect figure to pull it off, but her male counterpart looked merely sickly and small standing beside her. It was a smart move on her behalf by the stylist, though: Nobody would look at anything but Scarlett's body and hair. Her less-than-spectacular face wouldn't even register in the time it took for the chariot to pass.

"Any advice for this?" Aidan asked me, scratching at his sequin-covered arm.

I shrugged.

"Smile," I said with my own 'charming' grin, then walked away before Alivia could ask me anything.

For some reason, I had to keep reminding her that Mags, and not me, was her mentor. Perhaps it was Mags's age, or perhaps she just thought I was pretty, like everybody else seemed to. Either way, I wasn't amused, wasn't interested, and was about ten seconds away from strangling her at all times.

They made a decent impression, although nobody really stole the show. For me, Scarlett was the obvious choice, but her stylist had been doing trees for about thirty years, and the novelty of how they portrayed them was lost on most people when they saw that District Seven was once again, trees. The beauty of her hair covered in a headdress of yellow and gold leaves was apparently something only I noted as she went by in her chariot, smiling sweetly and waving at the audience.

"Training," I told Aidan at breakfast the following morning. "This is your chance to really show them what you can do, so don't hold back. Intimidate the other tributes, impress your fellow Careers. Get in the pack. Keep your eyes out for useful tributes from other districts, people who seem dangerous and talented enough to help the Careers pick off the competition, and recommend them to the other careers. Don't try to take charge, though, unless they start looking to you for guidance. Remember, Alivia's the oldest, so unless she screws it up she should be the leader of the pack."

I didn't think she would. She had the air of confidence necessary for an alliance leader already built in. Aidan nodded, seeming to take my advice, and Mags took me up to District Eleven to socialize with other mentors.

Blight was there, as well as Chaff and Alondra, Nuts and Volts, Jonas and Callie of District Eight, and the infamous Haymitch Abernathy, who had his signature bottle of liquor in his hand.

"Pull up a seat!" Chaff said eagerly, gesturing toward an empty loveseat across from Haymitch. "We were just wagering on who's getting the highest and lowest training scores this year."

It felt awkward, like wagering on their lives, but the conversation seemed as natural to them as it did awkward to me. Callie and Jonas insisted that their female tribute, Sara, would be lucky to get a one. Mags talked up Alivia, calling her the one to beat. Blight and Callie got into quite a tussle over who was actually going to have a lower score, Sara or Chance.

"My money's on Scarlett Delannoy," Haymitch slurred. "I don't know what her score will look like, but I think she's got what it takes in the arena."

"And what, pray tell, would that be?" Blight asked, amused.

"She's got fire in her belly," Haymitch said, "and it shows in her hair."

The others laughed, wrote him off as drunk, but I had decided long ago that this would be a very dangerous thing to do with Haymitch Abernathy. He might be drunk, but he seemed to always know exactly what was going on around him, even more than everybody else. I noticed Chaff wasn't laughing, just nodding thoughtfully into his own whiskey bottle, and I realized there was some sort of understanding between those two that I would never fully understand.

That night, Aidan and Alivia bragged about how well they'd done at training, and Alivia in particular raved about her abilities with a sword, and how impressed the boys from Districts One and Two (Nigel and Talan) had been.

For three days it went on like that, with us sending off our tributes in the morning, spending time on a different floor every day with the same sorry bunch of mentors talking about various aspects of the Games and who we expected to do what, and then coming back to listen to Alivia and Aidan brag and boast and talk about how wonderful they were. It was a headache.

Finally came the day of the private sessions. One of the grand advantages of being from District Four was the fact that my tributes went fairly early, and I didn't have to pace the floor wondering how well they would do.

Aidan came back first. He'd used a dagger, he told me, and a mace, threw an axe, and showed off a bit with a blowgun before they shooed him away. Alivia bragged that she was able to display her skills with a shortsword, javelin, and blowgun before her time was over. I knew that Alivia's greatest skill, from getting impressions of other tributes through their mentors, was her ability with a sword, and if she managed to get her hands on one in the Cornucopia, she'd be a fierce opponent.

The display of the training scores came on that night, and we all sat around the television as the tributes from Districts One and Two all received eights. Aidan pulled a nine. Alivia got a ten. The girl from Five (her name was Amber) also managed a ten, to our surprise, and the boy from six (someone named Titus) got an eleven.

"We tried to get him in our alliance," Alivia said with a frown. "He's killer with axes. But he didn't seem interested."

According to Aidan, that was an understatement. In fact, the boy was downright hostile, but it would be better if they thought of him as a threat right off.

Blight's tributes pulled a three and a five. Scarlett, of course, got a five. It wasn't a great score, but it wasn't terrible, and certainly outshone her male counterpart. According to Alivia and Aidan, Nigel and Talan had tried to talk her into their alliance, but she said she was only going to ally with Chance.

"I suppose we can take them out quickly," Alivia mused, "if Nigel doesn't let his obvious crush on her get in the way."

"Don't count her out," Aidan said softly. "I don't know if you noticed, but she stayed away from the axes. She's from Seven, Alivia, that's bound to be her best weapon, and yet she avoided it at all costs, stuck around the minor stations. She could easily be downplaying her strengths to avoid attention."

Alivia rolled her eyes, but I had to agree with Aidan. Her interview would be a great way to gauge if this was her actual plan.

There were a lot of fives, a couple of sevens, and Sara from Eight even pulled a two, which meant that Jonas and Callie would be splitting that pot, but the eleven from Titus had thrown everybody. What was it in him that the Gamemakers found to be so dangerous?

What was it in me that they had thought was so dangerous?

After all, elevens were a target on your back.

That night, I sat up with Mags, talking about the interviews.

"What do you think?" she said. "Alivia is fierce and bold and doesn't really need anything but a touch of refinement, but Aidan's a bit of an anomaly. I mean, he's clearly able to talk about himself and play himself up, and his rush to volunteer marks him as eager, but does he actually have the ferocity to pull it off? And the real question is how are we going to present them as a pairing? Because you know that they're going to bring up you and Stella, going to point out the fact that these two are planning to work together in the same group."

I sighed and said, "Do you want me to humble him down a bit, or should he be fiercer? Alivia's the obvious and natural leader of the group, but maybe we could play up on his charm?"

Mags shook her head.

"It's always a bad idea for a mentor to use their own tricks for the person directly after them. People expect it, especially because the young mentors tend to be just a tad naïve. The other mentors expect it. Unless you think that's really his best shot, I'd advise against it. He'll never be as perfect for that role as you were, Finnick."

I considered my options for a moment, biting my tongue and wondering how exactly I had been so perfect for that role which I was still having to play every moment of my probably-televised life. Would Aidan be able to do the same? I thought so. After all, in school, Aidan and I were alike in most ways, and nearly everybody said so. It worked for me; it ought to work for him, too. I decided it was worth the risk. Aidan would be charming, too.


	3. Sickeningly Sweet: Scarlett

**A/N: POV is Scarlett**

My interview dress was forest green, long, flowing, and impossible to walk in without tripping. I pointed this out to my stylist, and she showed me a trick for carrying it, but I don't think that Laurene had ever gone from wearing pants nearly every day to wearing what were surely sixty-pound dresses covered in silly embellishments that I suppose looked pretty, if you thought such things were pretty.

Blight told me to be a sweet as possible. Especially with a five as my training score, he said, it was important not to be myself because it would make people dislike me.

It was lucky, really, that I had Hanna to think of as I prepared for my interview. She was about as sweet as I was, which was to say, hardly at all, but she'd been making people believe it for all of her life, it seemed. Really, I was the better liar between us, so it shouldn't have been too hard, I reasoned, to lie for the cameras and pretend to be sweet. Gush a little bit. Dazzle the audience with my pretty dress that I couldn't walk in. I would be golden and the whole night would be over soon enough.

We lined up for the interviews, right between Districts Six and Eight, and I nearly choked at the sight of Chance. The stupid stylists had him in this silly brown suit that even though it fit him perfectly he looked like he was swimming in. Perhaps they had forgotten he was only thirteen, or perhaps they were just too caught up with the idea of us being trees to actually worry about what either of us looked like or our level of comfort or anything like that. It took all my self-control not to sigh and fix his collar, like I would have done for one of my brothers, but I wasn't supposed to be acting like his mother. It wouldn't do him any favors.

"Your collar," I whispered at him. "It's crooked."

He jumped at the sound of my voice, looked down at his collar, and swiftly adjusted it, though I could see his hands shaking. I wasn't sure if it was his nerves for the interview or the fact that he was scared of me (and I knew he was scared of me, that wasn't hard to figure out), but it was probably some combination of both, which made what would have been for him a difficult task of getting up and talking in front of the entire country and incredibly impossible one.

I thought it was a bit funny that he was afraid of me. Actually, it wasn't such an uncommon thing in District Seven. I wasn't sure why people were afraid of me, but despite Trish insisting that people weren't actually afraid of me, I knew that, like my father, people found me intimidating. Maybe because of my father, who was a large, imposing sort of man, or maybe because I was simply far smarter than anyone else I knew, and they were afraid of being tricked. I supposed the fear was logical, in a stupid sort of way, but I had better things to do with my time than tricking people. It would have been boring. I spent my time working on myself, teaching my siblings things they couldn't or wouldn't learn in school, helping Trish with homework, helping my father split wood. I didn't have time for foolish games and silly, petty tricks. I hardly had time for the things I actually wanted to do, what with all the people around my house needing to be taken care of constantly.

Blight gave me one last wink as I followed the other tributes out onto the stage, walking right behind Titus, the fierce District Six tribute who had scored an eleven. I didn't think it was really fair to stick me between him and Chance. Everyone would want to back Titus because of his score, size, and absolute air of ferocity. People would at least pity Chance because he was so small and utterly hopeless in the Games. What cause would they have to pay any attention to the girl stuck between those two opposites?

The first one up was Summer, the girl from District One. She went on and on about what an honor it was to be representing her District, as most of the Careers tend to do. It was all I could do not to gag on the spot, but even though the camera feeding to the audience was trained on Summer and Caesar Flickerman, with his purple hair and eyebrows, there was bound to be a camera that would have caught my expression, so I trained myself into an expression of quiet interest in everything my fellow tributes said.

Then Nigel, her male counterpart, got up. I paid a bit more attention to Nigel, because he awkwardly followed me around training for days, attempting to make conversation, trying to lure me into the Career pack for some unknown reason. I didn't throw axes in training, not even in my private session, praying there would be a hatchet or axe of some sort in the arena and I would surprise everybody with this particular skill. Besides, I wasn't entirely sure of my capability to kill with an axe, as I'd never done more than playfully throw them around at trees in the yard, competing against my brothers to see who could throw the furthest. I was always able to get them to further, thinner trees, but did that really mean anything, throwing better than a bunch of children?

"Of course it's an honor," Nigel said, just as Summer had before, but far less gushy. "But I think all of my fellow tributes would say that. I'm glad for the opportunity to be here, and I'm very glad to have had the chance to meet the other tributes."

I nearly snorted at that, but Caesar Flickerman took that bit and ran with it.

"Tell me, Nigel, if there was one person in this batch of tributes you think you'd be friends with if you were from the same district, who would it be and why?"

It was an interesting question, but for me the answer would have been simple: None of them. Half of them were idiots and the other half were a bunch of fakes who lived for the opportunity to fight to the death and rip each other to shreds. Intimidating, yes, terrifying, of course, and absolutely insane, naturally, but none of them were friend material at all.

But Nigel took me by surprise.

"Oh, that's easy," he said with a smirk. "Scarlett Delannoy and I have gotten quite close. I think she and I would have been fast friends if she had been from District One. But maybe I'm just a sucker for pretty things, growing up in District One, and all."

I very nearly gagged at that one and had to physically force the bile down my throat as the audience exploded with sound and I raised my eyebrows.

Friends with Nigel? Not in a million, trillion years.

"Friends, Nigel?" Caesar said with a good-natured laugh. "Are you sure you aren't looking for a bit more than friendship?"

"I'll admit, Caesar," Nigel said with another creepy little smirk, "that I would certainly follow her around if there were different circumstances. I mean, she's beautiful. But as to what would happen, who can say?"

The audience tittered stupidly and I held in my groan. I was just going to have to respond to it, because I knew that Caesar would ask me about this declaration of admiration for my looks. And I had to come up with some response other than the fact that I was sickened that a thirteen-year-old had designs on me while he was probably thinking of how to kill me at the same time.

Anya from District Two was likable, smiling and talking about her father's masonry back home. Talan, her male counterpart, was funny, cracking jokes back and forth with Caesar. Alivia from District Four, the obvious head of the Careers, was bold, fierce, and full of herself. Aidan, her male counterpart, was trying to play up the charming angle, obviously, but he just didn't pull it off, and after watching Finnick Odair charming the pants off the audience the year before, it was anticlimactic, to say the least. Amber, the surprisingly high scorer from District Five went for cocky, and Titus, the boy from Six who was right before me, had no problem playing up the ruthless angle. It was clear to me that most of these people were probably just being themselves, or at least, playing up personas they'd been working on for years for the games, and in cases like Aidan, when they were trying something new, they failed miserably.

But I wasn't sweet. So I supposed, as I walked toward Caesar Flickerman when they called my name that it was a very good thing that I was a very good actress.

"Now, Scarlett," Caesar said, grinning at me, "first things first. It seems you've got an admirer. Would you care to respond to Nigel?"

I put on my sweetest smile, nodded and replied, "Well, I'm very flattered, Caesar, but I myself am still quite young, and it's really too bad for Nigel that I'm really not interested in younger men."

I added a little giggle and the audience laughed with me, making it all seem like such a cute little joke that I wanted to vomit on the spot, but I was acting, so it was easy to hold myself in check.

"Tell me a bit about your family, Scarlett," Caesar continued, "and your life back in District Seven."

"Well," I said cocking my head to the side and looking up, trying to look as much like a small child as possible, "I have two older sisters, three younger brothers, and my oldest sister, Hanna, is married and I have an adorable niece who's about three. My mother died when my youngest brother, Ripley was born, so my father and Hanna really take care of us."

"What does your father do?"

"He does specialty cutting," I explain. "The refined sort of woodcutting that rich people buy. Most of his work gets shipped off to District One to be made even fancier with jewels and things and then sold in the Capitol." I don't add that he gets paid maybe a tenth or less of what the Capitol people pay for the finished product, or even what they would pay for the product before it's been done up in One, but I do think it. I think about it all the time. "He's very handy with all manner of woodcutting tools."

"Like axes and the like, I suppose?" Caesar pressed, obviously trying to decide if I was in any way likely to be a contender.

"Yes, of course, he's a woodcutter," I said with a grin and a bit of a giggle. "But that's really just one of his tools. And anyway, he uses a hatchet, usually, not an axe."

"I wouldn't begin to know the difference," Caesar admitted.

"It's very subtle, but when you've grown up in Seven, most people with family who've worked in the woods could tell the difference."

What I wasn't about to say was that I could survive just about anything with a hatchet in my hands. No point giving away spoilers.

"I suppose I would have a disadvantage in the woods, then, wouldn't I?" Caesar laughed. "Well, my dear, I'm afraid our time is up, but the best of luck to you, Scarlett Delannoy."

I thanked him and kissed him gently on the cheek, knowing the audience would adore that. And they did.

I had barely gotten back into place when he called out, "Chance Buckley" and the thirteen-year-old made his way up to the front, clearly shaking with nerves.

"Don't afraid, Chance, we won't bite!" Caesar said good-naturedly.

Chance gave a nervous sort of smile and went up with Caesar, turning his smile out to the audience.

"Now, Chance, last year the boy from your District got an eleven," Caesar said. "You pulled off a three. Do you think this is going to give you a major disadvantage for sponsors?"

Chance shrugged.

"I think people need to remember that he was a lot older and bigger than me, so he was much more likely to impress the Gamemakers. But something else people should remember is that he was dead on the first day. Elevens aren't always a good thing, you know."

"Very true, very true indeed," Caesar said with a nod. "Would you not put your money on Titus, then? Is there someone else you would consider a greater threat? Alivia, perhaps?"

Chance shrugged and looked down at his shoes for a moment, as if trying to decide something. Then he looked back up determinedly. "They're obviously contenders if they were rated so highly," he conceded, "but if I were a sponsor, I'd put my money on Scarlett."

Caesar raised purple eyebrows in surprise.

"Why is that? Some secret skill she hasn't shared?"

I gritted my teeth, hoping he wasn't going to mention my skill with axes. Somehow he must have known about it and I wasn't about to get killed early because a little boy couldn't keep his mouth shut. We'd had a deal: he would help me look harmless if I protected him as long as I could. If that meant it came down to me and the pipsqueak, I didn't really mind. I had no problem killing a little boy and becoming a pariah in my district. Hardly anyone liked me, anyway.

"Maybe," Chance said with a shrug, "but she's smart. Smart people always do really well."

Holding in my sigh of relief and turning it into even breath and a grateful smile, knowing I was on the screen, I decided I wasn't going to kill Chance for spite after all. He might have gained me a sponsor or two, and he certainly hadn't given away my more deadly attributes, just as he promised. Besides, he must have figured out that my doing well meant he was more likely to do well, too. Who knows? He might get lucky and survive some Gamemaker-made horror that killed me, leaving him the last one standing.

Sara, from District Eight, was next, and she was surprisingly witty, turning a lot of Caesar's jokes right back around on him, which he took remarkably well. I couldn't help but think she had a lot of confidence for someone with a two as her training score… Did she, too, have some secret skill, or had she just decided it would be better to enjoy her last days alive as she had no chance of winning?

The further along we got into the interviews the less I found myself wanting to gag, as I couldn't help but think that a lot of the girls toward the end were more like me and Trish than I would have otherwise cared to admit. Tindra, from District Nine, had a niece about the age of Alyson. Anna from District Eleven had lost her mother young, even younger than I had. And Richelle from District Twelve, who had surprised everybody with a seven, made me think endlessly of Trish.

She had long, blonde hair that her stylists had obviously spent hours on, because every time I had seen her in training it had hung limp and useless in a ponytail, very much like Trish's. She also had one of those incredibly plain faces that people couldn't help loving; one that always carried an effortlessly sweet smile.

"Richelle," Caesar said kindly, "how are you feeling?"

"Fine, thank you," she said in her cute little voice.

"I heard you took a bit of a fall during training. Have you recovered?"

"Yes," she said, "thank you for asking."

I had forgotten about that. Richelle had been trying to lift one of the swords and fallen over as she had attempted to heave it up to a place it would even be useful from. I hadn't thought that it had been much of a fall, but then, I hadn't been paying much attention. My efforts were on making myself appear inadequate.

"How do you feel about your chances in the Games, Richelle?" Caesar said. "You scored as well as your predecessor from District Twelve, and she lasted right up until the end. Do you have any secret skills you're hiding as well?"

She laughed, her honest face making me feel as though I had to believe every word she said.

"No, Caesar," she said. "My biggest skill is falling over, and with any luck I'll fall into someone and knock them into a ravine or something."

I nearly snorted. It was such an innocent response, something so easy to look over, and something that could very well be covering up a truly deadly skill that I had to wonder if she realized how loaded her statement was, or if she truly did just think that was her best chance of killing someone. From what I had seen, she was probably right.

On the other hand, from what people had seen of me, the same could probably be said, and I certainly had better ways to kill them. Maybe she did, too.

When the interviews were done, we smiled at the audience and waved one more time and I tried to be a sweet and gushy as physically possible with losing my Capitol dinner all over the Capitol studio audience, but my eyes caught Blight's and he gave me a little approving nod. I had done well.

As soon as my eyes left his, I found them trailing down the line of mentors, and right on Blight's left were Haymitch Abernathy of District Twelve (the most notorious mentor ever) and Chaff of District Eleven, a man with one hand. They were both watching me, whispering to each other. At least, I thought they were looking at me, but I couldn't be sure. Maybe they were looking at Titus.

Still, the chill that ran through me as Haymitch's eyes trained on what I thought might be me made me forget my disgust at the whole situation, made me forget for a split second that I was on camera in front of the entire nation, and made me wonder what exactly was going on in that brain of his. I could almost see the wheels turning behind his gray eyes.


	4. May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor: F

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

By the time the interviews were over, I was almost positive I had been wrong. It would come down to Titus and Alivia and Haymitch Abernathy was probably as drunk as half the country believed. Despite something in the pit of my stomach that told me not to count him out, I was incredibly impressed by the way they had managed to intimidate even me for a split second.

All Scarlett had managed to do was amuse me with her dig at Nigel who was, admittedly, a bit of a slimy, creepy little thing.

Mags had been right, as she always was. Aidan was absolutely a flop at charm and everybody could see it. I was going to have a rough time getting him sponsors. I just had to rely on Alivia divvying up her own sponsor gifts amongst her allies long enough to give him a chance.

As we watched the replay of the interviews, it struck me that the one the cameras loved, despite her seeming insignificance in the context of the Games was Scarlett, perhaps because of Nigel's confession or Chance's awkward comments about her, or perhaps because she had a natural grace on camera, but I still had to tell myself that Titus and Alivia were the ones to beat. They would get sponsors. Alivia was pretty enough to take care of any sponsors Scarlett might have gotten otherwise. At least, that was what I told myself as the interviews came to an end, but even I wasn't sure I fully believed it.

"Well?" Alivia said breathlessly. "How did we do?"

"Very well," Mags said. "You did just as I asked you, Alivia. You were lovely."

"Aidan," I said slowly, but he cut me off.

"I know I blew it, Finnick," he sighed. "I'll just have to rely on me. I'm sorry I didn't do you any favors in getting me sponsors. Maybe I'll gain some as the Games go on."

We ignored Alivia's skeptical snort, and Mags and I said our goodbyes to Alivia and Aidan, knowing that even if we were lucky, only one of them would be returning to us, and with all likelihood, this was the last we would see of either of them.

That night, my nightmares were worse than they'd been in such a long time. Stella's face shifted into Alivia's, and Alana's shifted into Aidan's… The worst part, I thought, was the fact that Lila shifted into Scarlett Delannoy and then pointed a pistol at my head with a coy sort of smile. When I awoke the following morning in a cold sweat, I couldn't help but wonder how my first Games as a mentor would be, given that I was already having such nightmares.

Mags led me to the twelfth floor, where our little group of mentors would be watching. She informed me that Meredith had already set up groups of sponsors who would meet us separately over lunch for the signing over of funds, should our tributes survive the bloodbath. I had just taken my seat between Chaff and Blight when the tributes began to rise up into the arena, where they had to stand in their black circles for a full sixty seconds before the signal to make a dash for the Cornucopia.

There was a mountain, I noted, trees, and a river between them that circled the meadow area with the Cornucopia. It appeared as though the river was shallow and mild, but water could be deceptive, and the Gamemakers had many ways to change that, even if it were the case.

When the signal went off, Scarlett and Alivia were the first ones to the Cornucopia, and I noticed Scarlett grab a pack and search through a small pile of axes for something in particular. She found it just in time, because as she turned around, Alivia was standing over her, sword poised and ready, but Scarlett casually flung the axe in her hand and it lodged in Alivia's forehead. She pulled it out and ran for the forest where Chance had taken off for at the end of the sixty seconds.

"Wow," Jonas said softly, which was basically what all of us were thinking.

In that split second, the way we all thought about those Games had changed.

"A hatchet," Blight said with a touch of pride in his voice. "She sifted through a pile of axes for a hatchet. She knows what she wants."

We didn't have time to dwell on it, though, because the bloodbath was still going on. Summer threw a knife at Anna of District Eleven, who caught it on the throat and went straight down. Jonas's boy punched the girl from District Six across the face and her neck snapped. He took off toward the weapons as she fell into a lifeless heap. Beetee's boy sliced Richelle nearly in half with a longsword. Elena from Ten threw an axe that looked different from Scarlett's hatchet at Sara, and nobody was surprised when Sara didn't dodge in time. Amber killed Mara with a slingshot, which was impressive. Talan managed to kill the District Eleven male with a dagger, and Elena picked up another axe and got the District Eight male just as he was picking up a pack.

The tributes dissipated and we stared at the screen as eight shots of the cannon fired.

"Well," Chaff said softly beside me, "that's my work done for the year."

It was true: Chaff, Alondra, Jonas, and Callie were already looking incredibly relaxed. All of their tributes had just died in less than ten minutes. They could just watch. There would be no meetings with sponsors or deciding of when to send what gifts. It was just another Hunger Games now.

First, we saw the Careers, huddled around the Cornucopia, organizing the remaining supplies, including each other. Alivia had been their leader, but she had been the first dead of the whole of year.

"Aidan," Talan said slowly, "how do you think we ought to protect our supplies this year?"

My stomach churned with concern. They'd chosen Aidan, I knew, because of his getting a slightly higher score than the rest of them. The others would listen to Talan. He was sensible. He'd spoken first. He'd already proven deadly with the dagger that was getting rather cozy in his hand.

"I think…" Aidan said slowly, obviously trying to decide how to play his new role in the alliance, "that we ought to leave two of our weaker swimmers here to take care of the supplies and organize them how they see fit. Never know if that river's going to change."

The girls admitted to being very poor swimmers and the boys then decided to start hunting down the other tributes.

"Who do we go after first?" Nigel asked, attaching a shortsword to his belt. "Titus?"

"Did you even see which way he went?" Talan asked. "I lost track of him quickly in the fight."

Nigel shook his head and Aidan frowned as they both looked at him.

"Forest," he said slowly. "A lot of them headed that way, and it'll be easier to track them there than on the rock of the mountains. Besides, I want Scarlett Delannoy out of the way before she's got a chance to get her bearings."

I noted that Nigel appeared uncomfortable about this, but Talan agreed and he was outnumbered as they made their way toward the forest.

The cameras cut to the forest, where Chance and Scarlett were wandering away from the Cornucopia, her with her hatchet and a couple of packs, him with a large staff.

"Why did you grab that stupid stick, anyway?" she sighed. "It's taller than you are."

"It's my weapon," Chance insisted. "And _Blight_ recommended it. He gave us _lots_ of good advice, _didn't_ he, Scarlett?"

Blight laughed.

"Good boy."

"What was that all about?" I asked, puzzled.

"He's reminding her not to be a bitch," Blight explained. "I told him to keep her a sweet as possible in the arena, or I'd never get them sponsors and they'd both be dead. For a scared little boy, he takes direction surprisingly well."

I laughed as she ruffled his hair, shaking her head, her face amused, but a hard glint in her eye. She had not appreciated the reminder of her persona.

She froze.

Chance paused beside her, looking anxiously up at her face.

"What's wrong?" he whispered in such a soft voice that we had to strain to hear it, even with the sound turned up.

"Did you hear that?" she breathed, almost just as softly.

His eyes narrowed and he looked around them slowly, not seeing anything, but just as he turned to face Scarlett again he saw it, and all of Panem did too: the boy from District Five was coming at her with a knife.

With surprising strength, Chance swung his staff and Scarlett ducked just in time. The boy from Five was hit with such force that he was dead before he hit the ground, and the cannon fired.

Scarlett and Chance were both panting, staring at the body, and every jaw dropped in our group of mentors, even Haymitch's.

"Keeping that boy alive might be easier than I thought," Blight muttered to himself, and a few other mentors laughed hollowly.

"Where did that come from?" Scarlett gasped, shocked.

Chance looked even more surprised than the rest of Panem, though, as he stared at the dead body on the ground in front of him.

"I just meant to disorient him," he said shakily. "I thought if I knocked him out a bit you could… I didn't…"

"Relax, Chance," Scarlett said with surprising softness, touching his shoulder. "If you were going to be a contender at all, you were going to have to kill eventually. And you saved my life. It's good to know I'm not pulling on the weight in this partnership," she teased. "Now come on. The Careers will be coming, they want the body on that hovercraft, and we need to get out of here before an angry hoard of beefcakes come after my blood for killing that pretty thing from Four."

"Smarter than she comes across, then, isn't she?" Talan hissed.

Scarlett and Chance whirled around and we could see the three Careers had found them, and they were lounging against nearby trees, watching the sweet exchange with stony faces.

"Hello, boys," Scarlett said with a coy smile. "Nice of you to drop by, but we were just on our way out. I'm afraid we can't stay and chat."

"Really?" Talan said, eyebrow raised, taking a step toward her. "Because I must insist, this is one conversation that is absolutely to _die_ for."

His dagger was out, and Scarlett screamed for Chance to run, which he did without hesitation. As Aidan chased after and it became clear Chance could not outrun him, Chance shimmied up a tree, high enough that the much-heavier Aidan couldn't reach.

I wondered, as we watched the fight going on between Talan and Scarlett, why she didn't just do the same. She was, after all, small, light, and from District Seven. But perhaps the thought didn't occur to her as she struggled in hand-to-hand combat with Talan, with nothing but their dagger and hatchet.

Nigel was standing off to the side, clearly hesitant to join in on the battle with the girl he was infatuated with, obviously hoping someone else would kill her.

I knew it was over as soon as she lobbed the hatchet. She had a reasonably sized gash on her left arm, but she'd taken off his ear already, and taken a chunk out of his stomach. The hatchet lodged itself in the same spot on him as it had on Alivia: right between the eyes. The cannon went off seconds later, and there was an odd hush amongst the mentors, at least, until Haymitch began to chuckle.

"Told you so," he muttered, taking another swig of his liquor.

Scarlett turned to Nigel, who shook with fear, ran to get Aidan, and the pair of them went back to the remaining Careers, to regroup and reassess their planning.

With a sigh, Scarlett looked up at Chance.

"Come on down, they've gone," she groaned. "I need help tying something on this wound."

Chance scampered back down the tree and frowned at her, grabbing one of the packs and looking for a medical kit.

"We'd be safer in the trees, Scarlett," he said. "They can't follow us up there. They're too big."

"Yes, well, I can't follow you up there, either," she snapped. "We're not climbing trees."

Many of us frowned, including Blight, and even Haymitch blinked in surprise. A girl from Seven not wanting to climb trees? It was like a tribute from Four who couldn't swim.

"Why not?" Chance pressed, obviously less scared of her with his own weapon in hand, knowing that Blight wouldn't advise her to kill him just yet, anyway.

"Because I don't like it, all right?" she hissed.

"Sorry, Scarlett," he said slowly. "You don't have to be so mean, you know."

There it was; you could see it on her face, the reminder that she was supposed to not be herself in the arena.

"I'm sorry, I just got a bit worked up," she sighed, her face instantly softening as she and Chance continued to move away from the Cornucopia. She must have realized that her second lapse in behavior would require some sort of explanation, so she said, "When I was about ten I fell out of a tree, maybe twenty feet up. They didn't think I was going to walk again and my father cried. I… I haven't climbed a tree since. I don't plan on it and I don't think I would if my life depended on it."

"I'm sorry," Chance said, looking at her as if really seeing her for the first time. "That must have been scary. You wouldn't have been able to dance anymore."

To everyone's surprise, a smile, a genuine smile lit across Scarlett's face and she nodded.

"Yeah, that would have been horrible. But I got better, so I can still dance."

"Why that stupid little chit," Blight grumbled, causing Haymitch and Chaff to guffaw drunkenly. "She didn't say anything about dancing. Neither of them did. That could have been such an asset. Damn them."

I shook my head, amused. Blight certainly had his hands full with that girl. While she'd done a decent job with Chance so far, most of that was because Chance had been keeping her on her toes, and while they had an average training score of four, they'd had four kills between them on the first day alone. He was bound to have a long line of sponsors to deal with.

Speaking of sponsors, Mags leaned across Blight to say, "Since Alivia's already done, I'll handle the sponsors today. They're always worse on the first day. Tomorrow we can do it together and then we can trade off from there, all right?"

She was offering to do more than her share, but who was I to complain? I wanted to see the Games, wanted to watch the events, not sit around a table with rich people negotiating and signing contracts.

At lunch, those with people still in the competition hurried off to charm sponsors for their tributes. Chaff turned to me, remarking that he would pay big money to see Haymitch trying to sweet-talk sponsors after his fifth drink of the morning. I said, "Does he even really try?"

Chaff shrugged.

"I think he put out a bit of effort for Alana, but he doesn't think this boy's got a prayer. I don't think he'll really bother. He's probably going to lunch for the sake of the booze."

We both laughed, but my laugh didn't feel as amused as horrified. Would I ever become so jaded with the lives of my tributes?

Not likely, I reasoned. He was one of two people from his District to ever win. My District had the pleasure of winning on a much more regular basis, tending to pass the crown around between us and Districts One and Two.

The cameras were showing us the Career camp again, Nigel and Aidan returning to the girls without their third counterpart. Anya, the girl from Two, frowned.

"Where's Talan?" she asked. "Is he chasing down somebody?"

To Aidan's credit, he looked down at the ground before picking up an axe and throwing it at a tree across the river.

"Talan's dead," he snarled. "Scarlett Delannoy got him."

There was silence.

"Well," Summer whispered, "at least you got her."

"No," Nigel said, looking scared. "She got away."

"But there were two cannons," Summer said slowly. "What happened?"

"The boy killed the guy from Five," Nigel whispered. "We saw it just as we were coming up on them. He had a staff. He's quick, too."

The lot of them grumbled, but the camera quickly switched to somewhere deep in the forest, just as the other mentors began to trickle in. Haymitch sat down next to Chaff the very moment the male from District Three sliced off the head of Haymitch's tribute with a longsword, and Haymitch shook his head dismissively.

"Well, Beetee," he slurred, "I guess you've just handed me my invitation to my next bottle. Cheers."

Many of the other mentors laughed, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. There was something about the dark look Haymitch gave Blight when he returned to the room that made my skin crawl. That in itself was odd, because Haymitch and Blight were old friends, maybe not as close as Haymitch and Chaff, but certainly near it. He wasn't angry with Blight, he seemed concerned for him. Was he worried that Scarlett wouldn't win? Was he worried she would? And what would that mean for Blight? What would it mean for Haymitch? What would it mean for me?


	5. Food: Scarlett

**A/N: Scarlett's POV**

Chance hadn't asked for me to climb trees again after our run-in with the careers, and I did my very best to be as nice to him as possible. I found it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. He turned out to be rather useful, and when he realized he was capable of killing, he seemed to grow less afraid of me all the time.

After the faces of the eleven dead on the first day flashing into the sky, Chance and I started thinking about who was still alive, who was still a threat. Really, the only ones we could think of who might be actively searching for us were the Careers, Titus, and Amber.

"There's one bad thing about this forest looking so much like home," Chance said with a sigh that night as we curled up in a shelter I'd constructed in a gathering of trees.

He didn't have to say what he was thinking; I knew exactly what he meant.

"Rain," I said softly, sifting through our packs, counting our meager medical surprise and ignoring the twinge of pain in my arm where Talan had cut me.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Where'd you learn about healing, Scarlett?"

"My mother," I said softly. "I learned a bit from her. My dad knows a bit, too. His father was a doctor, you know."

"A doctor?" Chance asked, sitting up a little. "Why did he give up that life for the woods?"

I laughed and curled a little tighter into my blanket. "Yeah, that's what his mother said. She was horrified, wanted all her sons to be doctors, had the money to make it happen, too."

"Why did he, then?" Chance pressed.

"He didn't much want to be a doctor, for one," I explained. "That was part of it. But I think he also fell in love with my mother and didn't want to be apart from her." I sighed. "He didn't talk about it much, but I think that was the biggest reason he moved. That… and you've seen his work. He was destined for his trade."

"Yeah, he does amazing work," Chance sighed back. "Sometimes, at school, the boys from the woods will talk about how the wish he would take an apprentice, like his job is their ticket into a better life. I'm not sure any of them could do it, though. I think to be as good as your father you'd have to be a natural."

I nodded absently, not thinking about how Chance couldn't see me. My father had a gift, an artistic talent and an eye for fine wood, that he had passed on to Hanna and Ripley, but I hadn't gotten it. For years he tried to teach me his trade, especially when it became clear that for all her skill Hanna wasn't interested in woodwork, but my father's favorite daughter had no skill for anything but telling him what wood was what tree. Even that had taken years of training.

The following day we set about trying to find what to eat. I knew I would never be able to get meat, but I was excellent at foraging plants. My father had taken me into the woods plenty of times, spending days in the forest, living off the plants. I didn't know what any of it was called, but I knew what was edible and what tasted good, and that's what mattered.

"Are you sure about this one?" Chance asked, spinning the clover-like leaf in between his fingers. "It's rather small, and it's a bit sour."

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, but don't eat too many at once or you'll be sick. Just one or two with every meal. I don't know if they've got much nutritional value, but they're edible."

"We're going to need protein, Scarlett," he reasoned. "And we won't get on long without bread. Wasn't there any food in the packs?"

"No," I sighed. "A couple of medical kits, a knife, the blankets, and a canteen. That's all we've got, Chance. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I'll be able to hunt. For now, this is going to have to cut it."

Chance frowned, picking up a stone and hitting a tree with it. He didn't ask why I wasn't hunting. We were too loud to not frighten the animals and I wasn't fast enough to chase anything, certainly.

"I hope Blight gets us sponsors, then," he sighed. "What about fishing? Do you think you could fish?"

"Maybe," I admitted, "but I don't have anything to make a proper hook out of, and anyway, the only water we've seen substantial enough to hold fish was back by the Career nest. I don't imagine you'll be asking us to go back there for a while, am I right?"

Chance nodded his assent and we wandered the woods for the day, foraging, looking for better shelter, and keeping a sharp eye out for fellow tributes, but none came.

That night, Chance made a sound much like giggling, and I tried very hard not to roll my eyes.

"What?" I sighed, turning over in my blankets.

"I just thought of the looks on their faces when you threw your hatchet at Talan. I thought Nigel was going to wet himself."

I smiled a little in spite of myself.

"Yeah," I said softly. "It was definitely worth avoiding the axes the whole of training, even getting that five. As if I would have gotten a five."

"You would have scored a ten, at least," Chance said, admiration obvious in his voice.

"What about you, Chance? You've already proven deadly, but you only got a three," I pointed out, still very curious about his unexpected kill the day before.

Chance shrugged.

"I hit the right spot. There are lots of spots, pressure points and stuff, on animals that can make them behave different. I guess I just hit a soft part of his head or something. I don't know."

It wasn't much of an answer, but I expected it wasn't much of a fair question. I hadn't told him what stupidity I had done in my own training session, so why would he tell me what he had done in his? Still, it made me uneasy to think that he'd managed that kill so easily. What if he wasn't as helpless as he let on? He knew my secrets, but what did I know of him and his skills? Why hadn't I been paying more attention? A little boy could kill just as easily as an older one… Finnick Odair's victory the previous summer had proven that.

I had trouble sleeping that night, knowing Chance was watching over me. What if he tried to kill me in my sleep? But then, he didn't have the confidence for a move like that. No, it was clear he was counting on me to protect him, at least until I trusted him enough that he felt comfortable killing me. Then he would certainly go for me in my sleep. As long as I was sleeping uneasily, he would endanger himself by trying to kill me then, so I would continue to do so.

On the third day, we were already starting to feel the effects of hunger. Chance was rather brave about the whole thing, and to the people of Panem, so was I, but inside I was panicking. Despite having one parent for years and having such a large family, I'd never had to go without food for long. My father's work was so well loved in the Capitol that they wouldn't have dared let us starve unless he'd done something silly like attempted to kill President Snow. And my father would never have done that. He was a family man, always thinking about how his actions would affect others.

I rarely thought things through, which was something my mother said he'd grown out of the minute he fell in love, the minute something started to matter to him more than his ideals and his own skin.

It was a romantic idea, and that's part of why I never really believed it. Becoming practical the moment one fell in love? Oh, I had no doubt my father loved my mother and that he would have done anything to protect her and the rest of us, but I found it very hard to believe he'd ever been as impulsive as she'd claimed.

And I? I had to stop being impulsive, not for love, not for the sake of my family, but for the sake of my own life. I had to keep myself from breaking my sweet demeanor, even when I was in battle, for fear of losing any support I might have earned.

Although, I was beginning to wonder if I truly had earned any Capitol support by the time the fourth morning came around. I woke to the sound of a cannon blow, actually terrified that it would be Chance, lying in a pool of blood, the Careers standing over his tiny little body, sneering at me, at him.

Chance, however, was watching me, frowning slightly.

"Who do you think that was?" I whispered, looking around for a hovercraft.

"Don't know," he said, just as quietly. "Over there," he muttered, pointing toward the mountain. I couldn't tell from that distance whose body was being hoisted into the hovercraft by the giant metal claw, but I would have guessed that it was a petite person, probably female.

"They didn't leave a weapon in the body," I said thoughtfully. "Definitely either someone who knows it's a weapon they can use or a person who's so desperate for weapons they'll keep whatever they've gotten their hands on."

"Who does that rule out?" Chance asked, opening our small stash of foraged food to divvy up some breakfast.

"Careers," I whispered. "They're the only people who can afford to waste weapons, and unless they're in the middle of a battle, they often do. If there are no other cannon shots in the next twenty minutes, assume the Careers aren't on the mountain."

"Who do you think it was, then?"

"Titus, maybe?" she said thoughtfully. "Amber? I don't know. I don't know, Chance, just eat your berries. It's all just speculation anyway. It doesn't matter. We'll be dead by tomorrow if Blight doesn't send us some real food soon."

The following morning, I would regret asking for more food ever. I would regret ever saying anything about death. But at that moment, all I wanted was a bit of warm bread like my sister would bake and just a bit of meat, any sort of meat at all.

At lunch, we got our wish. Blight sent us a silver parachute with one loaf of District Seven bread and two legs of some sort of bird.

Typically, I would have snubbed the bird meat. I hated bird meat, preferring red meat by far, but as I hadn't had meat in four days the last thought on my mind was my preference for red meat as I tore into the leg.

"Save the bread for tomorrow," Chance said, tucking it into our supplies. "That way he doesn't have to drain dry any sponsors we have."

It was a good idea, and I agreed wholeheartedly.

"C'mon, let's go and fill the canteen," I said. "It's nearly out, and we definitely don't want to go thirsty. Do you remember where the closest pond was?"

He told me where the pond was, saying he would stay and cover our tracks, undoing the shelter I had built for us the night before. I agreed, knowing it would be quicker if we split up. I wouldn't be far.

But I was far enough not to hear his yells until it was too late.

By the time I rushed back to our camp, Chance was lying in a pool of his own blood, a sword through his stomach and the District Ten male standing over him, frowning as if he was disgusted with himself.

_He ought to be_, I thought, _killing a thirteen-year-old_.

This had been Chance's first year of eligibility, too, as he had turned twelve the day after reaping day the year before.

The boy from Ten saw my hatchet coming and managed to withdraw his sword and scramble off into the woods too fast for me to chase after, my hatchet lodging itself in the tree behind where his head had been. I rushed to Chance's side as he continued to bleed out.

"Chance," I whispered, looking at all of the blood and wanting strongly to vomit.

"Scarlett," he rasped weakly, "I was wrong about you. I was so wrong. Everybody is, back home. I hope you win."

"Chance," I whimpered, shuffling through the pack for a medical kit, "you're not dead yet. They haven't shot the cannon. You're not dying on me."

I don't know why I cared so much, other than the fact that I would be alone if he died, but I had never much minded being alone before.

"I can see my lunch and my blood in one pool, Scarlett," he moaned. "It's only a matter of time. It hurts."

I could imagine.

"Could you help me, Scarlett?"

I couldn't help him, he'd said it himself, he was going to die. I couldn't comprehend what he meant.

"Scarlett… your axe…"

"Hatchet," I muttered through tears.

Tears? Where had those come from? Why was I crying?

Because in that moment, I didn't see Chance, the annoying little boy from my district, the one who could ruin my chances to come home. I saw a boy barely older than Brendanus and Michael and Ripley, a boy who had been a casual viewer of the games for twelve years just like the rest of us had.

"Whatever," he muttered. "My neck. Make it quick."

"The blade's too small," I whimpered, knowing I couldn't decapitate him with a hatchet. Even if the weapon would allow it, my stomach and conscience wouldn't.

"Please," he muttered, tears finally beginning to fall from his cheeks. "My mother is watching. I don't want…"

But he didn't have to finish. He didn't want his mother to see him bleeding out on a forest floor, suffering in his last minutes. With my eyes full of misty tears threatening to fall, I yanked my hatchet out of the tree and leaned down beside him.

"The packs are all ready to go," he whispered. "Close your eyes, deliver the blow, turn away, grab the packs and run."

He knew: he must have realized how much I hated blood. He had planned it out when he realized he was going to die, exactly how he was going to die, exactly how to make it easiest on me, and I had no idea how to thank him.

With a deep breath I positioned my hatchet, silently thankful that he had such a small neck, closed my eyes, turned my head a bit, and brought down the blade with one fell blow, feeling the blood splatter on the thighs of my tribute outfit, turning away fully before I opened my eyes again, grabbed, the packs, and ran, barely noticing the sound of the cannon blow as I rushed as far away into the woods from that spot as I could get, letting the tears fall from my eyes, mentally blaming them on the air stinging my face and hoping the people of Panem would do the same.

After all the hard work Blight and I had done, all the things Chance had done for me, I wasn't about to look like a total weakling.

But I realized that was my strategy, being sweet, so I allowed myself a sniffle or two that night as I lay awake, watching for other tributes.

I felt a little sick, though, thinking about the bread in the packs that he would never get a chance to eat, thinking that at least Blight sent him a bit of meat to enjoy before he died. I started running over the surviving tributes in my mind as Chance and Elena's faces flashed across the sky of the arena.

"Nigel and Summer," I whispered. "Anya. The guy from Three. Aidan. Amber. Titus. Tindra. The guy from Ten." I paused, looking up at the sky. "Me."

I decided I would hunt down the boy from Ten first. The others would find me or they could wait. Training scores didn't matter. Districts didn't matter. Silly personal grudges from embarrassment in interviews didn't matter. Chance was dead, and as the first rain of the Hunger Games began to fall I decided it was really all that mattered.

My distaste for the rain was overcome by my thankfulness that something was hiding my tears from the viewers of Panem. Especially Chance's parents. I couldn't remember, by the rules, whether Chance's death would be counted as my kill or the kill of the boy from District Ten, but I thought it would be mine, and either way his parents had just seen me take an axe to the neck of their sweet young son. If I had been disliked in District Seven before, this was enough to make me the most hated person the district had ever known.

It was easier building shelter for one, I decided, glad that I had at least marginal protection from the rain as I went underneath my built shelter, curling beneath the tree branches I had stacked expertly. Chance would have spent fifteen minutes praising my work, at least, as he had done every night of the Games, and suddenly I found I missed his obnoxious, sycophantic voice immensely.

He had said he was wrong about me.

Was he not being sycophantic after all? Had he really somehow taken a liking to me? Why, because I was vowing to keep him alive? Blight would have let me starve if I hadn't tried. Obviously I hadn't tried hard enough.

I wondered vaguely as I faded off to sleep whether Blight would let me starve, seeing as I'd obviously failed.


	6. Mentoring: Finnick

**A/N: POV Finnick**

The death of Chance Buckley had sobered even Haymitch. Nobody liked the death of young children, and Chance had not only been young, but also a glimmering example of youthful innocence, even when he had made his only kill.

I found that I also didn't like negotiations with sponsors very much. They all seemed to want to deal with me, though, despite the fact that Mags really knew what she was doing, and would sometimes even say they wouldn't sign any agreements if I wasn't the one at the table. It was frustrating, because it kept me from watching the Games sometimes, but Chaff would fill me in on what I missed, as he and Haymitch didn't leave the television unless they were passed out, either from the exhaustion or the alcohol.

The fifth day of the Games I spent much of my time with sponsors, but I felt ridiculous. Why would anyone bother sponsoring a Career when they had such an obvious advantage of food, water, and supplies? Aidan and the others he had allied himself with were not in need of anything except a break on hunting down the other tributes. True, Nigel had gotten Elena, and we had all enjoyed Scarlett deciding that her death hadn't been due to a Career, but since that morning, nothing had happened of consequence on the Career's side of things.

We knew the viewers were getting anxious, as well, because nothing of consequence had happened on that fifth day. I was glad because I hadn't missed much (apparently Titus wandered around the mountainside a bit, Scarlett moved and built another shelter, and the Careers attempted to track Amber, to no avail), but I knew that this would mean day six would probably bring on some sort of Gamemaker-created horror for our tributes.

The morning of day six, I found Haymitch and Blight alone in front of the television, frowning.

"What's wrong?" I asked as I sat down beside Blight, taking care to be as far from Haymitch as possible without appearing rude.

"Tindra," Blight said softly. "She hadn't found much water yet… but she's found some now."

I wondered what he meant by that, but then I looked at the screen and saw Tindra struggling in the river, which had swollen tremendously from the day and a half of rain they had experienced in the arena.

"She's drowning," I whispered.

They both nodded, watching the horrific scene with near-indifference. Her strangled cries, her flailing… I'd seen a few people drown back home, stubborn kids who were scared of the ocean and didn't learn to swim properly, but never anyone as old as Tindra. Was it not normal for people of other Districts to learn to swim?

"Can you swim?" I asked them.

"I can," Blight said. "There's a lake near where I was from."

"I'm not graceful," Haymitch admitted, "but I had to swim a bit during my Games and I'm still here, so I'd call that a yes."

"But how many other people here can swim?" I wondered out loud.

"Mags," Blight snorted. "That's probably about it. Some of the District One and Two people learn during training, if they've got a descent trainer. Not all of them think it's important enough when you've only got eighteen years at most to teach them everything they need to know, at most."

His eyes grazed over me and I shifted uncomfortably. Of course I had trained, I was from Four, but I certainly hadn't learned everything I'd really needed to know before I was reaped. From what Blight had said of Scarlett I expected that she would have had a similar situation, had she been from a Career District. She wasn't popular back home, and neither had I been, before I had won the Games. Suddenly, it had been like everyone wanted to be my friend again after that, but I kept to myself, for the most part. Mags and my family were really the only people I wanted to see anymore, the only people who could possibly understand the ways I had changed.

Because I had changed. We all did, those of us who survived the arena. The nightmares, the increased paranoia and alertness… I'd heard several of the victors slept with knives, and I guessed that Blight and Haymitch and Chaff would have been among those. Mags had managed to keep most of her sanity and was not taking weapons to bed, but sometimes I fought the urge to take my own knife to bed.

It was silly, of course. Nobody was after me anymore. Still, every shadow looked like a tribute I killed or one who had tried to kill me. Mostly I saw Stella and Alana, the two I took down in the end, sometimes with Lila and Ellie, the ones I couldn't save.

The sound of a cannon blast brought me from my thoughts and I saw the hovercraft gathering up Tindra's body.

"Well, good morning tributes," Haymitch sneered sarcastically. "That'll wake 'em up."

He was right, of course, as Haymitch often was. By the time the other mentors had more or less gathered around the screen we had seen the Careers packing up and in hot pursuit of Scarlett but going in the wrong direction, as she had moved a lot from the time they'd last seen her, Scarlett attempting to track the boy from District Ten, who was hiding in a tree well above her, watching her pass below him with fear in his eyes, relieved at her confusion when she couldn't figure out where he'd gone next. Amber was trying to hunt, with little success, and Titus… Titus was starting to starve. He'd settled himself on the mountain, which was foolish for long-term residence as there was little in the way of edible plant life or any sort of animal life, although it was very defendable.

"Oh, here we go," Chaff said, sitting forward, and we saw that Titus had come across the abode of the District Nine male.

Titus smiled a little, considering something. Carefully, he got a knife ready, but instead of throwing it, he threw the axe in his other hand. The cannon went off less than a second later and Titus rushed forward, we thought to retrieve his axe before the hovercraft came in. But he was huddled over the body, knife in hand… carving up the body of the fellow tribute.

"What is he doing?" Alondra asked, gasping.

Haymitch's eyes, even, were widened in shock. "I think," he muttered, "I think he's going to eat him."

We sat uneasily as the cameramen appeared to decide this as well, quickly shifting the camera to Scarlett, still attempting to find the boy from Ten.

Cannibalism. That was something I couldn't recall having ever seen on the Games before, and from the looks on the faces of the other mentors, it wasn't something they'd seen, either.

"Well, he's not getting sponsors now," Beetee said thoughtfully. "Nobody's going to want to sponsor a boy who's lost his mind with hunger."

I wondered if that was really what had triggered the extreme decision, or if Titus had already been crazy before the Games. It would take more than a few days without much food to drive someone to eat another human being… I hoped.

Those were the only deaths that day, and I couldn't help but sleep a bit uneasily that night, my nightmares full of Titus eating a variety of people, including myself. I wondered how many other mentors Titus visited in dreams that night, but judging by the faces the next morning as we gathered around the screen, at least a few.

"Anything exciting?" I asked, dropping between Chaff and Blight, trying not to notice the already-drunk Haymitch muttering to himself about squirrels.

"Not yet," Chaff sighed. "It can't be too long, now, before they force something out of the tributes. They want to push aside the memory of what Titus did to that poor boy. You can bet the people of the Capitol are outraged."

"The Capitol?" snorted Alondra. "All of Panem is in outrage about that. I'll bet if he wins District Six will rip him apart."

Haymitch let out a low laugh.

"He'd have to win by absolute luck, Alondra," he growled. "They're not going to want a crazy victor. You wait and see."

And I knew Haymitch must be right. He was always right.

It was about lunchtime when things started really heating up. Amber had discovered a nest of poisonous spiders and things were finally starting to seem interesting, important, but I had to go talk to sponsors. Mags and Chaff said they would fill me in, and Blight and I walked down together.

"How does it feel," he asked, "knowing that a portion of what you work for goes to One and Two?"

I shrugged.

"Lyme's all right," I said, referring to the District Two victor who was mentoring Anya, and doing a very good job of it, too. "It's the rest of them I can't stand."

"I'm not sure they can stand themselves, either," Blight muttered as we reached the area where sponsors lurked, waiting for mentors to come and socialize with them. As always, I found myself immediately torn into by middle-aged women and Blight was carried off by older men, all chattering at him eagerly.

The worst part about attaining sponsors is that you are expected to behave as the citizens of Panem were lead to believe was your personality during the actual Hunger Games. Some people had been their personas so long, like Haymitch, that it was difficult to tell if it was ever a persona at all.

I spent about three hours going around, chatting with all manner of rich women (giggly, flirty, down-right provocative) and signed quite a few deals on behalf of Aidan, although it was obvious none of them were interested in Aidan at all. His name was never even mentioned during negotiations. I felt like, for some reason, the thought they were doing me some sort of favor, and I didn't like the way it felt. I kept on my charming face, though, just like Mags had told me.

When I arrived back for dinner with the other victors (I had to take a long shower after all that charm I had to ooze), I found that the only seat left was between Blight and Haymitch, who was surprisingly more or less upright, despite obviously having drank twice as much since I'd left as he had that morning when I was there… roughly another six drinks.

"What did I miss?" I asked, tucking right in to the lamb stew.

"Only Amber getting poisoned by spiders," Mags said dismissively. "She got three bites. If she doesn't get sponsors fast, she'll be dead within four days, mark my words."

"Right," I sighed, trying to ignore the fact that even Mags talked about it like it was something that happened all the time.

But it did happen all the time. Every year twenty three children died in all manner of ways. It was horrible, I realized, that it took cannibalism to faze us, to make us uncomfortable, for that had made even Haymitch squirm in his seat.

"Do you think she'll get sponsors?" I asked nobody in particular.

"Ronan's been working hard at it, I know," Blight said, "but if he's working so hard, they're probably not successful, for whatever reason."

Ronan was one of the District Five mentors, a man who had won a couple of years before Alondra, and an excellent knife-thrower. When the tributes were with their stylists, sometimes some of us would sneak down to the training facilities and mess around a bit. Ronan had been throwing knives one day, maybe to stay in shape, maybe to see if he still had it in him, and he never missed a target once.

I didn't know what Blight was talking about, though. Working with sponsors was hard work. It always left me feeling exhausted and a bit disgusted with myself, chattering about the latest Capitol fashions or who I thought was prettiest in the current batch of tributes. When I felt like I wanted to scream, I had to remind myself that at least they'd pretty much stopped asking me about Stella, which was a relief. She still haunted my dreams; I didn't need constant reminders of her while I was awake on top of it all.

There were no deaths on the seventh day and I curled up in my bed wondering if Amber would get sponsors, or if she would be dead in a matter of days. I wondered if it would be a very painful way to die. Hopefully it wouldn't be as painful as the death Lila had died, although knowing the Gamemakers it would be worse. Bigger and better every year, after all.

I realized quickly, as well, that Haymitch and I would always be the first to breakfast and by result, the screen.

"As soon as the next one dies, they'll start interviewing families," he growled. "It's a lot more fun than when they interview us."

When tributes were in the process of interesting plot developments, their mentors were often pulled out to be interviewed about the action in question. Aidan had yet to do anything particularly exciting, so I'd been free of that so far. Blight was gone more often than not, especially after Chance's death, either working with potential sponsors or chattering to Panem about Scarlett and what a lovely, sweet girl she was, and how charmed he and Chance had both been by her manner.

It was difficult to listen to the interviews when they aired, because Haymitch guffawed drunkenly through them. It _was_ a bit hard not to laugh, I had to admit, knowing it was all a bald-faced lie.

"You think it's going to be Amber?" I asked. "Mags said she could go any day now?"

"Tough to say," he said, fishing around the liquor bottles at his side for one that wasn't empty. "She could get sponsors, or she could find some way to draw out the poison, but since neither has happened yet, I doubt she'll accomplish either. She could take a really long time to die, still. She's not a small girl. And Titus is hunting the Careers now, and Scarlett's going to figure out Ten's up that tree sooner or later."

I thought back to my own games as I sipped my orange juice, watching the screen as Titus was watching Nigel and Anya try to track him down by hiding behind a large boulder. We were already on the eighth day of the Games. My Games had been over in nine days, but it had also been the quickest Games in history. They were usually somewhere between two and three weeks. I knew Haymitch's Games had been the Quarter Quell, with twice as many competitors. I thought to ask him how long his ran, but somehow asking Haymitch about his Games felt… rude. It felt like an invasion of privacy.

So instead I just continued to sip my orange juice as the others filed in, joining us around the television with sleepy yawns and half-hearted greetings. After having spent more than a week in the same spot with the same people, everyone was less eager to see each other, less excited for the Games, less anxious to watch up bunch of children die. The annual newness had worn off and we were all just sitting around the television screen by that point, waiting for it to be over.

Nothing important happened on the eighth day. Amber did not die. Scarlett could not find the boy from District Ten. Titus did not kill either Anya or Nigel. Aidan and Summer did not find Scarlett. The boy from District Three did not leave his hiding spot in the little cave he'd found in the mountainside. Nothing important happened.

So they called us in for a lot of interviews to pass the time. I had to talk about Aidan and Summer working together, how Aidan compared to Nigel and Titus, and did I think they were going to find Scarlett soon?

I answered my questions with as much charm as I could muster while still being honest and as optimistic as I could with such a talented final group to work with. Then I took another long shower, as I always did after oozing so much charm at a camera or sponsors or a live Capitol audience for longer than about five minutes. I didn't realize it then, but I was already coming to despise the role Mags had set up for me as a charming, suave boy from District Four, and I had only barely begun.

That day I had started to truly realize something I had been grappling with for some time: The Games are only really beginning when a person wins. Mags, for example, had been mentoring off and on for more than sixty years. Haymitch had been drinking himself into oblivion for my entire lifetime. Haymitch, especially, had to come back to the Capitol every year and relieve the horror of the Hunger Games from the "safe" side of the screen, with a large number of other former victors. We had to watch, because we had to help our tributes, and we'd rather watch than not because dealing with the Capitol people involved in our jobs made most of us feel sick. After all, these were the people who had decided whether we ourselves had lived or died.

I didn't sleep much that night. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the faces of all the people I had killed mixed with the faces of the laughing women I dealt with every day, trying to get sponsors for Aidan. The two would mix together until Stella, Alana, Jenny… their own faces would laugh sinisterly at me as they came at me with a trident…


	7. The Victor: Scarlett

**A/N: POV Scarlett**

It had been five days since Chance had died and I still hadn't managed to track down that boy from District Ten. Every four days, religiously, it seemed so far, Blight would send me some sort of meat and a loaf of bread. Apparently he agreed that my biggest weakness was finding enough food to survive.

That's not to say I hadn't tried. I had attempted to hunt a couple of times with both the knife and the hatchet, but to no avail. The squirrels and rabbits were too quick for my reflexes, and the last thing I needed was to lose one of my weapons in the attempt.

I had been attempting to track Ten for days, circling the same large area, always coming back to a small group of trees at the center. The rain washed out his tracks fairly well, but I was almost sure, after days of examining, that he hadn't left. So where was he? Hiding? Waiting? I told myself that if I stayed in the area on alert, either he would come out to face me, attempt to run, or starve to death.

Unless he had a large supply of food.

But I was counting on him having little more than his sword. Perhaps it was intuition, rather than reasoning. My father had told me that I like my mother, had stronger intuition than most people, which had helped me out a lot. I was smart, yes, but I'd found that my reasoning rarely got me half as far as my gut. My reasoning was failing me on all counts as to where Ten was, but my gut told me I was in the right area, that he hadn't left, so I didn't leave. My reasoning told me he could be getting sponsor's gifts wherever he was hiding, but my gut told me I could wait him out.

There had yet to be any cannons for three days, but I had hardly moved far in those days. I was aware the Careers were probably on my tail, but I didn't want to lose Ten. So I stayed in one place, sleeping, knowing I was putting myself at great risk.

It took me two more completely uneventful and uneasy days before I heard something much larger than a bird moving in the trees above me. Frowning, I looked up and saw the outline of the boy from District Ten sitting in a tree. I smirked.

He thought that because I wasn't willing to climb a tree, he was safe. He wasn't incredibly far up, but far enough that most weapons wouldn't be able to reach him. Still, I had been throwing hatchets for all my life. I picked it up, smiled coyly up at his nervous face, and hurled the hatchet so that it lodged in his head, careful to knock him out of the tree so I didn't have to retrieve my weapon by climbing, and as soon as he hit the forest floor the cannon sounded.

I smiled, going over to his body and pulling out my hatchet leisurely. I used the dirt and leaves to clean the blood off the blade and went on my way toward the mountain, where I was sure the others would be.

"Careers," I said. "Amber. Titus. Three. I think I'll go for Three."

There was food in the packs, but only what I had managed to forage and half a loaf of bread. As I walked, a parachute fell to the ground in front of me and I bent down to pick it up.

More bread and meat. Ahead of schedule.

Blight was feeding me for killing Ten. Or avenging Chance? I would know for sure when I made my next kill. I didn't make another kill that day, though. I made good time toward the mountain and I set up camp, I heard two other cannons that day, with unknown victims. Staring up at the sky that night, I learned that Nigel and Amber had been the other two cannons.

"Titus. Three," I whispered into the cool night air. "Aidan. Anya. Summer. Me."

There were six of us left. Camera crews had probably interviewed my family that day, and all of Panem was likely in love with Alyson. Trish had had her hair done by real stylists. Blight would be analyzing my capabilities against the other competition, both for the cameras and for the sponsors. A few more kills and I would be done. I wouldn't have to kill all five, I knew. The arena and the other five would do a bit of my work for me. I estimated that three would be a lot, and maybe I would only have to kill one, if I played my cards right.

But I had traveled quite a long way away from the mountain in my time before the killing of Ten, so it took me another three days before I even reached the foothills, and nothing happened in that time except another drop of bread and meat from Blight and dodging the sight of Aidan and Summer, who seemed to be looking for me.

After two days of carefully searching the hills, sure that Three wouldn't have gone very far up the mountainside, I began to find signs of life. I tracked them back to a cave, where I found the boy from District Three sleeping away his morning, emaciated, in the stone.

"Hello, sunshine," I whispered, squeezing into the cave.

He didn't even wake up in the time it took me to toss the hatchet at his sleeping form. I scrambled up his food supplies, dragged his body out to the mouth for the hovercraft as I heard the cannon, and made it a little ways along the hills when another parachute fell. My four-day rations were inside, as well as a bit of soup. That settled it: Blight was feeding me for my kills. That afternoon, I still had found no one, but I managed to make myself a little shelter in some rocks and curl up, waiting for either the night or another tribute to find me. I felt too out of my element on the hillside and something felt very, very wrong.

It was evening when I heard the cannon, but then I heard something else… a rumbling. A sense of foreboding came over me and I looked up to see the snow tumbling off the mountainside. My heart was pounding in my ears as I gathered up my things and raced down the hill as fast as I could, retreating once more to the trees. I figured if anyone else was on the mountain, they'd either be killed by the avalanche or head for the trees as well.

Sure enough, there was another cannon and I curled up in my hastily constructed shelter that night to see Anya and Titus's faces join the face of the boy from Three in the sky.

"Aidan and Summer," I whispered. "And me."

I didn't sleep that night. There were three of us left, and Aidan and Summer were likely working together. I would need my wits about me in the morning, so I should have slept, but there was always a chance they would find me in the night, and I wasn't going out like Three. I was fighting.

As soon as the sun rose, it started to rain.

I took a deep breath and stretched, not bothering to cover my tracks as I made my way toward the Cornucopia. They were going to find me, or the Gamemakers would make them find me, or me find them. It was the end. Three of us were left, and we were going to end it right then.

Scarcely had I reached the edge of the trees, however, when I was awarded with the sight of my fellow tributes, making their way towards me quickly, knives in hand.

"What, not even a good morning, then?" I shouted, ducking the knife Aidan had sent for my skull and picking it up in my left hand, tossing it back at him, lodging it in his throat.

Summer kept coming toward me as the cannon went off and Aidan's body fell to the ground. She seemed itching for hand-to-hand combat, maybe to ensure that I couldn't duck. Maybe she sensed that I wasn't as comfortable when I wasn't throwing, but either way, I didn't want her to outthink me. If I threw my hatchet at her and missed, I would be weaponless, as my knife was at the bottom of my pack, virtually unused. However, if I let her get too close, I would be out of my element, and I knew she must have been trained in hand-to-hand…. So I ran.

"What's the matter, Scarlett?" she howled after me, rather unintimidating as she was a bit breathless. "Scared?"

"Oh, terrified," I yelled back sarcastically. "And I feel that running away will actually make you give up."

She snorted, knowing I didn't mean a word of it.

When I reached the Cornucopia, though I hesitated. It wasn't a tree. There were no branches, and the high ground would be nice…

Quick as I could manage, I scrambled up the Cornucopia, a bit out of practice at climbing, but still reasonably fit at it. As soon as she reached the base, she looked up at me, frowning, as if trying to determine how my new position changed the dynamic.

"Who killed Nigel, Summer?" I asked. "Who do I owe my gratitude to?"

"Titus," she hissed. "And then he ate him."

I blinked at that, unsure if she actually meant that, or if she was trying to throw me off, but I wasn't about to be shaken from my goal.

"Well, well, too bad he's dead."

And before she could answer my statement, I tossed the hatchet as quickly as I could, watching it lodge into her neck as she moved her head to get out of the way. She fell to the ground, gasping, clutching at her throat, and I felt a bit bad standing there, watching her, waiting for the cannon, so I pulled out my pack and started fishing for my knife.

I didn't need it. She'd already stabbed herself with her own knife by the time I'd pulled it out and the cannon sounded. Claudius Templesmith's voice could be heard ringing throughout the arena.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the victor of the 66th Hunger Games, Scarlett Delannoy!"

I looked around as if expecting an audience to materialize, delirious with exhaustion and hunger. Before I had a chance to realize what exactly had just been announced, I passed out on top of the Cornucopia.

It seemed like it was several days later when I woke. I was in a sterile sort of hospital bed in a room without windows and doors. I shivered and sat up, finding that all the scrapes I'd gotten were healed and the wound on my arm had not only fully healed but had not scarred. I could no longer see my own ribs, I realized, looking down at my naked form, and they had been returning me to my pre-Games form.

With a sigh I got out of bed, put on the tribute outfit lying at the foot, and realized I had won the Hunger Games. I had won. I was going home to District Seven, I would see my niece again. Trish would get to braid my hair and ask me all sorts of questions about the Capitol. Life was going to be like it had always been.

Except life would be nothing like it had always been, because I wasn't the same person anymore. I had watched a little boy die, killed six people, and seen my life flash before my eyes about four times in the course of two and a half weeks.

I made my way out of the room through the wall that opened up and found myself in a long corridor. At the end were Blight, my escort, mine and Chance's stylists and prep teams. Without thinking, I rushed right for Blight's arms and hugged him as tightly as I could.

"I'm alive," I whispered. "I'm alive."

"That you are," he chuckled. "And looking rather pretty, I see. Come on, now, we've got to get you fitted for the ceremonies and such."

My stylist had a sophisticated blue evening gown for me and I wore it to watch the Games on stage with Caesar Flickerman, who seemed very pleased to see me. I knew my reactions were on camera and tried to keep my sweet persona at all times, knowing I was being watched, evaluated, considered, even then. But there was one thing in the whole of the video that threw me for a loop.

Summer had actually meant it when she said Titus had eaten Nigel. In fact, Titus had eaten two people, and was going in to eat Anya the day before I won, but the Gamemakers shocked him, collected her body, and then sent the avalanche to bury him. They hadn't even given him time to recover from being shocked. It was fairly clear to me that they had meant that avalanche to kill him, and if they had gotten me in the process, so be it. I was certainly glad I hadn't been half as high on the mountain.

I thanked Caesar after he announced my live interview the following day, and followed Blight's lead to the dinner party where I thanked my sponsors, which were numerous rich old men, and remained as sweet and humble as possible.

That night, I collapsed in the living room, staring at the floor.

"How are you feeling, Scarlett?" Blight said, sinking into a chair beside me.

"Overwhelmed," I admitted. "A bit nauseous."

"Don't vomit on the carpet. I think the Avoxes have enough to deal with what with Haymitch, and all."

I laughed a bit at that. Haymitch Abernathy, District Twelve Mentor. He was a drunkard, and the idea of him vomiting on a semi-regular basis wasn't at all a strange on.

"I'll do my best," I said. "What did Chance mean, he was wrong about me?"

"I think he realized he shouldn't have been scared of you," Blight said with a shrug. "I think he realized that you weren't some evil demon bent on world domination and making others miserable."

"Is that why he was frightened of me?" I said with a hollow laugh. It seemed like something a much more interesting mind than Chance's would have come up with.

Blight just shrugged and said, "I embellished a bit. Anyway, regardless, Scarlett, you've got a big year ahead of you. Your interview tomorrow is only the beginning. Remember, sweet is who you are now, probably for the rest of your life. Until we get you a replacement, that is. Remember, this winter, we've got the victory tour, and then you'll be coming back and mentoring with me in the summer."

I sighed. I had forgotten, of course, about all of the pageantry involved in the life of a victor.

"Any advice for the tour?" I sighed, stretching out a little bit, taking a sip of the tea the Avox had left for me.

"Be pretty, pick a decent talent, and stay as sweet as you can."

I snorted.

"Right, helpful. What's it like, being a mentor?"

"Well," he sighed, taking a drink of some sort of liquor, "it depends on the mentor and the district and the tributes, but you basically coach a kid or two to their death every year. And sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll win, but mostly they die."

"Thank you, ray of sunshine," I groaned. "You've made me feel so wonderful about my new life."

He gave me an odd sort of look, then shook his head and said, "Good night, Scarlett. Tomorrow, after the interview, I'm going to introduce to you a few other mentors before we go home. Don't forget."

I waved off the comment, sinking into my tea, and enjoying the night.

It didn't take long for the nightmares to begin that night. I pictured my arms being eaten off by Titus while I was still alive, I saw my brothers in the games, Alyson going into the Games as she was. I saw my house burning down, my father wasting away, not convinced I actually won. I saw Trish deciding she hated me because I couldn't save Chance, and all of District Seven turning from me. I saw the spiders that killed Amber crawling across my skin, biting me every few steps they took, causing me to moan in a mix of pain and pleasure as the poison seared through my body.

Then I woke in a sweat, shaking and sopping in the Capitol bed.

I wasn't naïve enough to believe my troubles would be over if I won, certainly. There was bound to be repercussions for spending several weeks fighting for my life against mostly younger kids. Psychologically, nothing was going to be all right about me ever again, but I hadn't realized it would be so bad quite so soon.

After about an hour of trying to go back to sleep I simply turned on the light and sat up, staring at the wall for a while. When I was bored of that, I took the longest shower of my life, washing away all my guilt, all my self-disgust, day-dreaming about seeing my family again, planning out which book I was going to read my brothers first when I got home.

When I finally heard my district escort knocking on the door and telling me it was time to start the day, I turned off the shower, dried myself off, and dressed, knowing that after breakfast I would be changing, getting made up for the Capitol one last time, and spending hours gushing to Caesar Flickerman about my games in the sweetest way I could possibly muster. I was already swallowing the bile back into my throat.


	8. World of the Victors: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

She had been cleaned up when I saw her in person. The cuts were healed, the bruises were gone, the blood had been washed away, and her pouty red lips, which had been chapped severely for the last few days of the Games, were once more smooth and healthy. The same blue evening dress I saw her wearing in the brief bit of the recap I watched was hanging elegantly off of her as she sat in the victor's chair next to Caesar, smiling sweetly and discussing her Games.

"How did you feel when Chance died?"

She paused for a moment and frowned slightly.

"It's sort of hard for me to say, Caesar," she said softly. "I think I thought a few times that if I could have just taken him with me for water, he would have been fine, or if I had waited until we'd cleaned up the camp, or if I hadn't heeded his request and tried to heal him rather than ease his passing, but I think the guilt is natural. He was a boy, I was taking care of him, and I failed, but I'm grateful it didn't come down to the two of us."

"Of course," Caesar said comfortingly. "That's only natural."

They talked for a bit about some of the other tributes, discussed her skills with a hatchet (which she apparently has been throwing at trees and targets all her life), and Caesar said, "You know, I think you might be the first ever tribute out of Districts One, Two, and Four who has won without hunting a single thing."

Scarlett laughed an airy sort of laugh.

"Yes, well, I knew it wasn't going to be a strength of mine and I didn't want to lose my weapon, so I avoided it. Thankfully, Blight and my wonderful sponsors were able to keep me going with supplements to my foraging."

"Speaking of your weapon," Caesar pressed, "I was a bit worried you weren't going to find the boy in the tree!"

"Yes, that was a tough one," she said, flushing with what would have seemed like embarrassment. "I think I was there several days, wasn't I? It was a miracle I wasn't killed waiting to find him."

"Certainly, in fact Summer and Aidan were rather close by at one point, but then they couldn't find your trail and went off in the wrong direction."

"Yes, well," she said, gigging a bit.

"Weren't you afraid of your axe coming back at you when you threw it at him?"

"Hatchet," she corrected, and even the camera people laughed with Caesar.

"Right," he said good-naturedly.

"No, I wasn't," she admitted. "I knew exactly where it was going to hit. I was more worried there wouldn't be enough force to knock him out of the tree and that I'd be out a weapon."

They laughed together, but I hadn't thought of that. I frowned a little, wondering if she would have been sitting there had the boy not fallen.

"Scarlett, is there a boy you think you'll be spending a bit more time with back home now that you've won?"

"No, no, I don't think so," she said with a giggle and a smile. "It's not something I've ever really thought about, and I wasn't exactly contemplating my relationship options in the arena."

"You and Finnick Odair would make a smart couple you know," Caesar said brightly.

I shifted in my seat and ignored Mags and her snickering.

Scarlett smiled sweetly.

"Perhaps," she said evenly, "but I don't think I'll be in any sort of relationship for some time. I'm still quite young, after all. And as I said before to Nigel," she added with a smile that was very nearly a smirk, "I'm not interested in younger men."

More laughter at that, and even I had to laugh. Sure, I was only a year younger than her, but I wouldn't be sixteen until partway through the next set of Games, whereas she would be seventeen in a few months, so it was a rather long year.

"And what will you do until the Victor's Tour?" Caesar said with a small chuckle.

She cocked her head to the side, batted her long, dark eyelashes thoughtfully, and said, "I would very much like to spend time with my brothers. We'll probably read books together."

Books. So she _was_ as smart as she seemed.

"That sounds lovely, Scarlett," Caesar said with a smile. "Best of luck, and I suppose I'll see you soon. You'll be a mentor next year, won't you?"

"Yes, I guess I will," she said eagerly, smiling as President Snow came out to place the crown on her head for the cameras, continuing her aura of grace and sweetness.

As soon as the cameras were turned off, Scarlett sighed heavily, running her fingers through her lush hair as she walked to meet Blight.

"Glad that's over," she said sharply, catching me by surprise with the abrupt loss of her sweet, dreamy quality. "Can I go home now?"

Blight, Chaff, and Haymitch all roared with laughter.

I couldn't laugh. I wanted to go home, too.

"Tomorrow, Scarlett," Blight said indulgently. "Come meet some of your fellow mentors. You'll be getting to know everyone quite well in the coming years."

She strolled over to us confidently in her ridiculously high heels and held out her hand to me.

"Pleasure to meet you, Finnick Odair," she said with a smirk, sizing me up. "Too bad for you I don't like younger men."

I chuckled, took her hand, and said, "Scarlett Delannoy, welcome to the world of the victors."

There were more introductions as she was unofficially inducted into our social group of mentors, meeting all the people I had watched her Games with, greeting them with much more attitude than she'd ever had with cameras rolling, and nothing struck me quicker than the fact that Haymitch and Scarlett hit it off right away.

"And the look on Nigel's face when you got Talan!" Haymitch roared with drunken laughter. "I thought he'd wet himself!"

"He probably did," Scarlett said with a sly smirk, winking at me when she realized I was watching her, laughing along with Haymitch as I turned away, blushing.

Why was I blushing? She was just a girl. A very, very pretty girl, I realized as we all adjourned to the District Seven living area to share one last dinner, but she was certainly not half as pretty as Stella, and even Stella only made me blush when she really worked at it.

But I had known Stella. I knew exactly what to expect and saw right through her. Scarlett was entirely different. Just in the little time I'd been officially introduced to her, she was an entirely different person from what I had come to expect while watching her Games, and I didn't know what to make of her. I wasn't sure if I had over- or underestimated her, but I knew I hadn't known what to think, that was certain.

She ate a lot. I reasoned that she'd hardly had much to eat for two and a half weeks, but I don't think I'd eaten half that much in my last meals in the Capitol the year before. Perhaps it came from having such a large family, an inherent need to put food away like it wouldn't be there if you wanted more a minute later. She certainly could have outdone most of us if dinner were a competition.

The mentors left in ones and twos, and soon Scarlett, Blight, Mags and I were the only ones left.

"So, Finnick," Scarlett said lazily, stretching out on the sofa, "any advice for a new victor?"

"Yeah," I said, laughing, "practice your persona regularly, because you'll be using it for the rest of your life."

She made a sour face and we all laughed, but she began to laugh too.

"It's time for bed," Blight said, shooing Scarlett off to her room. "We'll see you next year, you two. Scarlett's got a nice early morning back to Seven."

"Bye!" I she said lazily, making her way back to her room, waving without actually looking at us.

"Charming girl," Mags said cheekily as we made our way back down to our own floor.

I snorted.

"Right," I said. "She's got no charm at all."

"On the contrary," Mags argued. "She's got charm when she knows she needs it. When she's made aware of it, she's as charming as can be. She could be a dangerous girl, if you were on her bad side."

"That she could be," I conceded, wondering if I would ever be on her bad side, and what sort of danger that might mean.

**A/N: A bit of a short chapter, but the story was over and I had nothing to add. This is the end of the second story in the series. For those of you interested, part three will be up soon, probably sometime this week. It will be called **_**The 67**__**th**__** Games: Luke's Story**_**, so keep your eyes peeled! There will be more Scarlett and Finnick for everyone!**

**-J**


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